remus:So let me get this straight, they have been getting this for free for a long time and now are mad that the next group of students, who can afford it according to the article, might have to actually pay for it?

I sort-of understand why people delegitimize protesters as greedy when those protesters have a financial stake in the outcome. However, I will never understand why people delegitimize protesters for the apparent crime of not being motivated by personal monetary gain.

A university that only accepts students it is comfortable offering full-ride scholarships to--an institution that relies on its endowment to provide education without financial burden--is a remarkable thing. Wall-street mismanagement has ended it. For students who have a personal emotional stake in their alma mater, that regrettable betrayal of the university's core principles is clearly worth raising a fuss over.

ds394:I'm just curious what kind of alternative solution is being proposed by the protesting students.

How come all I'm hearing is the sound of crickets?

That's what I thought... protestors without an answer.

Step one: irresponsible short-sighted management.

Step two: a fiscal catastrophe necessitating in bailouts or golden parachutes for the rich, and massive cuts to services or pension/wage/benefit cuts for everyone else.

Step three: protests over the fact that, yet again, rich dudes farked up and now everyone else has to make sacrifices on their behalf.

Step four: protests ignored. It's too late to fix this particular crisis. The horses has left the barn. The money is spent, the bills are due, and you've just got to tighten our belts. Goddamned whiners is what they are.

"All the people upstairs and doing these sorts of actions to keep this school free -- we're not fighting for ourselves," senior Aaron Graham told the Village Voice. "We're fighting for future students because we're all already guaranteed the scholarship we've been given."

libranoelrose:Health care and education should be subsidized by taxes.

No. They should get good grades in HS that can be applied to private grants and work full time while taking more than 18 credit hours a semester in college like I did. I worked/studied my ass off and still had enough time to drink and smoke dope like a pro...but I had this weird condition called motivation that seems to be scarce among the "I want it now" Veruca Salt generation.that passes for students these days.

Shame on Cooper Union's administration and board for so grossly mismanaging finances as to run the school into the ground, and now making the students pay for what they have done. Are any of those administrators taking a pay cut? Didn't think so.

They have violated Peter Cooper's mission. If they are to charge tuition, then the school needs to be called something else as it is no longer Cooper Union. Where once students were selected based on merit alone, the school will now join the mediocre ranks of any other for-profit institution.

PsyLord:Waah! My school is no longer giving a free ride to their new students. Waah! Seriously, did they really think that the university can sustain that? What utopia do they believe they are living in?

They did sustain it, for decades, by operating off a generous initial endowment and restricting themselves to a tiny no-frills campus. Then a greedy idiot became president of the college and tried Unfettered Capitalism, and reduced the budget to a smoking crater. Again, go read the Times article:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/business/how-cooper-unions-endowmen t -failed-in-its-mission.htm

thamike:dj_bigbird: It's cute how the students think college is about them.

What does this even mean?

It means that colleges don't really exist to educate students anymore. That their goals are irrelevant. What counts at college is the number of admins, professors, bigger budgets, more buildings, more benefits for the staff, sports (to raise revenue) etc. etc. The students are just the conduit of money from the federal government (student loans, grants) to the college. The students are then saddled with inescapable debt. Great blog about this mess here: http://edububble.com/dpp/

Back in my day; you could go an entire year on less then $20,000; including food, lodging, books, and booze. To a big 12 college even. Smaller, tech colleges were even cheaper

There's part of the issue here. A lot of the less than sympathetic comments here show much the same attitude. Back when we all went to college in 90's, this was true. But unlike you guys I, who am returning to school, have actually looked at tuition again for the first time in a decade.

And it blew my hair back.

State college now costs what private schools used to cost. I could have hit ivy league for a few bucks more way back when for the cost of what state schools are now. I'm kicking myself like you wouldn't believe for having not been on the ball as much as I should have. Delaying finishing my education is going to cost me many more THOUSANDS of dollars over what it would have cost me back then. And I make about the same amount of money I did back then while everything else is much more expensive. Yay progress!

BTW, the income of the top 1% of earners in this country has jumped by a factor of several times since back then. I'm sure that's entirely unrelated to everything else. I mean, you can make up wealth out of thin air and it doesn't have to come from somewhere else like being squeezed out of the earnings of the middle class, or so they tell us. And they must be right, they're rich after all and it's not like they'd lie to us so we wouldn't get cross over them getting richer at our expense or anything.

Blame the government.

Why shouldn't a state school charge $25,000 per year when they know anyone can get a federal student loan for $25,000 per year?

I would be willing to bet if the feds limited student loans to $10,000 per year, state university tuition would come crashing down.

iheartscotch:/ knew a kid that went to some artsy fartsy art school in NEW YORK CITY; kid said he expected to have $200,000 in loan debt by the time he was done. All for a photography degree.

// He felt his talents were wasted on the biatchy, spoiled girls that pay $500 to get prom pictures. So; he was going to trade that for no guarentee of future income, a mountian of debt and even biatchier models.

I have no idea why people are doing photography degrees. The main reason for doing a degree is to have a piece of paper that says you have knowledge in something. In photography, you just show people your photos. That's it.

And most of the theory can be learnt in a few months.

I know a guy who recently went into industrial photography. He'd been a very good amateur and decided it was what he wanted to do. He got kitted out with a reasonable camera (but only a £1500 one) and then did a load of courses, workshops and masterclasses.

A school friend of mine is a pro sports photographer. No qualifications in it.

ypsifly:.but I had this weird condition called motivation that seems to be scarce among the "I want it now" Veruca Salt generation.that passes for students these days.

in the case of Cooper Union you have students that could go to literally any college they want. It's a very very very selective college when it comes to admissions. The people who go there are far from lazy or lacking motivation.

So here's the lesson for these kids: when the rich and powerful screws up, there is no accountability and no one will be held responsible, and it is up to everyone at the bottom (you) to pay the price. If you dare complain, you are afraid of hard work and is everything that is wrong with America.

They are. Big time. Both of them. Even before Obamacare healthcare was subsidized (Medicare/Medicaid), and student loans can be either subsidized or unsubsidized, but in either case at ages 18-22 you will NEVER get a better interest rate on a loan than you will with government money.

libranoelrose:Health care and education should be subsidized by taxes.

They are. Big time. Both of them. Even before Obamacare healthcare was subsidized (Medicare/Medicaid), and student loans can be either subsidized or unsubsidized, but in either case at ages 18-22 you will NEVER get a better interest rate on a loan than you will with government money. That government money has to come from somewhere.